005: The Last Stroke of Midnight

Summary: In This Episode: Feel-good stories can go viral online, but let’s apply the Uncommon Sense filter and see what we can take away long after the viral story is forgotten.<br>
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Show Notes<br>
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* The photo: click to see larger.<br>
* There’s a reference at the end to <a href="https://thisistrue.com/podcast-002-reverberating-for-decades/">Episode 2</a>, which is worth a listen if you didn’t catch that one.<br>
* Yes, someone set up a GoFundMe to supposedly aid the girl, but see the <a href="https://thisistrue.com/podcast-005-the-last-stroke-of-midnight/#comment-17452">first comment</a> below: I’m very suspicious of the motives.<br>
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Transcript<br>
In these acrimonious times, a feel-good story can easily go viral online, getting shared on social media, then sometimes even picked up in the news media, which is then shared on social media again. I’m going to tell you one of those stories that you might have seen recently, but then I’m going to look at it from another angle, using the Uncommon Sense filter to see what we can take away for the longer term, after the viral story is forgotten.<br>
I’m Randy Cassingham, welcome to Uncommon Sense.<br>
If you frequent social media, you probably at least saw the tease for this story, and may well have clicked on it. I’ll start with the details of what happened, including some you may not have seen in whatever writeup you happened to read, and then delve a little into what makes this a story of Uncommon Sense.<br>
It happened in Akron, New York, a town of less than 3,000 people in the western part of the state between Rochester and Buffalo. There, Caleb and Olivia Spark had just gotten married, and they went to a park with a photographer for their wedding pictures. As the wedding party was posing for the various shots, someone else in the park noticed the commotion that Saturday afternoon: Layla Lester, a 5-year-old girl.<br>
Layla is autistic, and her mother says she often doesn’t know how to interact with people, especially strangers. But when Layla saw Olivia Spark in her wedding dress, she immediately knew who it was — definitely not a stranger. “She just goes running over, arms wide open,” said her mother, Jessica, yelling, “Cinderella! Cinderella!” Jessica said later that, “When she sees a princess, she’s going to love them because she loves princesses.” Mom says Layla knows of princesses from (where else?) Disney movies.<br>
Of course, the girl also saw the princess’s entourage — her wedding party — and figured one bridesmaid was Ariel, and another was Belle, her mother said. The man in the nice suit? Well obviously, that was Prince Charming!<br>
Olivia took time out from the photo session to talk to the little girl who thought she had to be a Disney princess. She engaged with the child. It isn’t clear whether she knew right away the 5-year-old was autistic or not, and it doesn’t really matter: it was clear the girl was having a magical moment, and Olivia thought quickly on her feet. “She was just so sweet with her,” said the mother, “and just kept talking to her and asking her questions. Layla loved her.”<br>
Of course the moment had to end — the couple had guests waiting. Even that part is sweet: Olivia told the girl that they had to get to the ball! The mother said, “She watched them drive away and just kept sayin...